july 2009

A special-ops soldier carries a slew of gadgets into battle. There's the GPS unit to pinpoint his squad's location, and a laptop for pulling up blueprints of terrorist compounds or infrared readings of buildings scoped out by robotic surveillance drones. With a radio and its five-pound battery, it's too much gear. But in a couple years, troops could lighten their load with a rugged, flexible, wrist-mounted display that's in development by the U.S. Army and HP Labs.

What: Brain-Machine Interface by Honda, which lets you control a humanoid with your mind
Where: Tokyo
Why: Disability affects one in five Americans.
Wow: Requires no surgical implants and boasts a 90 percent accuracy rate

What: An exoskeleton that dramatically speeds up recovery times from stroke
Where: Santa Cruz, Calif.
Why: An estimated 780,000 Americans will suffer a debilitating stroke this year.
Wow: The robot can simulate 95 percent of the motions of a healthy human arm.

What: Fluorescence-Assisted Resection and Exploration, a new technique that makes cancerous tissue glow during surgery, one cell at a time
Where: Boston
Why: Of the 1.5 million cases of cancer diagnosed annually, nearly all of them require surgery.
Wow: Pinpoints the spread of cancer in seconds

The Big Picture: Carbon-restricting legislation, if enacted, will discourage the use of coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Natural gas is cleaner but still emits carbon dioxide when burned. Both will be used for decades, but carbon-capture technology could clean them up until they can be replaced completely.

Where We Are Now: 1,460 GW
What We Need by 2050: 3,830 GW (all of it clean)
Tech to Watch: Carbon-to-cement

The Big Picture: Geologically active countries like Iceland can more than meet their needs with the energy that vents from the Earth, but other countries would benefit from expanding clean geothermal power as quickly as possible.

Where We Are Now: 10 GW
What We Need by 2050: 700 GW

The Big Picture: Geologically active countries like Iceland can more than meet their needs with the energy that vents from the Earth, but other countries would benefit from expanding clean geothermal power as quickly as possible.

Where We Are Now: 10 GW
What We Need by 2050: 700 GW

The Big Picture: It's nearly impossible to imagine making meaningful carbon dioxide reductions without designing safer, cleaner reactors and rolling them out immediately — because no one wants to build more of the reactors we have today.

Where We Are Now: 372 GW

What We Need by 2050: 700 GW
Tech to Watch: Next-generation Nuclear

The Big Picture: It's nearly impossible to imagine making meaningful carbon dioxide reductions without designing safer, cleaner reactors and rolling them out immediately — because no one wants to build more of the reactors we have today.

Where We Are Now: 372 GW

What We Need by 2050: 700 GW
Tech to Watch: Next-generation Nuclear

The Big Picture: Wind power is all about location — getting turbines where the breeze blows steady and strong. One of the best places for that is far out at sea. And because one of the biggest obstacles to expanding wind power is overcoming the objections of residents who don't want wind farms blocking their views, deepwater wind, which is invisible from shore, has dual appeal.

The Big Picture: Wind power is all about location — getting turbines where the breeze blows steady and strong. One of the best places for that is far out at sea. And because one of the biggest obstacles to expanding wind power is overcoming the objections of residents who don't want wind farms blocking their views, deepwater wind, which is invisible from shore, has dual appeal.

The technology is still experimental, but late last year researchers at Penn State University discovered how to make methane — a main ingredient in natural gas — from the very thing driving climate change: carbon dioxide. The key is microorganisms called methanogens. Engineer Bruce Logan discovered that the organisms produced methane with nothing but water and carbon dioxide when zapped with an electric current. Build a fuel cell around the microbes, and as long as the electricity that feeds into the device comes from a renewable source like wind or solar, the process can provide a carbon-neutral source of combustible fuel.

The Big Picture: Ethanol is the most widely used biofuel today, but it's hardly a panacea to our energy woes. Researchers are scrambling to transform more-
efficient organic materials — switchgrass, sugarcane, algae, sewage and even medical waste — into low-emission fuel for both transportation and electricity generation.

The Big Picture: Conventional hydroelectric power (think of the Hoover Dam) provides 7 percent of the electricity in the U.S. But the only way to increase that number without damming more rivers — which causes widespread ecological damage both above and below the dam — is to use nonconventional hydropower sources that capture energy from the movement of waves, rivers and tides.

Where We Are: 31 GW
What We Need by 2025: 67 GW
Tech to Watch: Hydrokinetic Power